| Author | Review |
|---|
Sashamorning
479,988
TA Score for this game: 1,312
Posted on 13 May 11 at 20:33, Edited on 23 May 11 at 18:15 |
This review has 61 positive votes and 21 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Captain Jack is back... and LEGO takes us along for the ride in this wonderful and fun voyage through the four Pirates of the Caribbean films. LEGO: PotC takes the best from the previous games and streamlines it into a more polished experience from start to finish. Add to that a healthy layer of piracy and magic, and once again Traveller's Tales has created a charming, humorous and entertaining experience, full of thousands of LEGO bricks to destroy.
Not nearly as grindy or meandering as some previous games (LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, I'm looking at you), LEGO:PotC strikes what could be an almost perfect balance in continuing the familiar LEGO gameplay while keeping brick and minikit hunting from being overly tedious. Suffice it to say, if you like LEGO games, you should love this one. If not, then stay away.
Like other LEGO games, PotC distills each film into five episodes with characters from the episode. After the first playthrough, you can go back through in a free play mode where you can use other characters with different abilities to hunt for hidden items.
The familiar LEGO humor is back, as expected. If you've played other games, you'll already be familiar with the structure. The central "hub" world, while more expanded than the Batman and earlier Star Wars games (I haven't played Star Wars III), is quite a bit simpler than the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones 2 hubs. All of the "Red Hat" extra modifiers are found here, but are nowhere near as tedious to find as in earlier games.
Each mission contains 18 collectibles: 10 minikits and 8 compass points. Most of the minikit hunting will be done in free play, and there's a minikit detector that you can buy with LEGO studs to help you. The 8 compass points use Jack's magic compass, and when you select a particular item, the game gives you a path straight to the item (if you can reach it at that point in the mission), along with an arrow showing you the direction. You also have the option of toggling on/off helper guides that give you a clue as to what you should be doing, such as where to light a cannon or fire a gun.
As always, LEGO includes a full cast of characters for you to play within the game, each as a LEGO mini figure that looks and acts like the characters in the films. However, unlike earlier games, you do not purchase extra characters through a central store. When they are available, you'll see them wandering around your (rather linear) town, and you can go up to them and buy them. While I can see that tracking down the last few characters could be a chore depending on when each decides to appear, the overall hunting for collectibles to reach 100% is quite a bit less painful than those who remember looking for gold bricks at Hogwarts (or doing the Super Stories in SW:TCS).
Overall, Traveller's Tales has done a wonderful job of crafting a complex world for us to enjoy, while making collectible hunting a much more enjoyable affair. Highly recommended, especially for fans of both LEGO and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Fair winds to ye!
 |
Lavindathar
347,669
TA Score for this game: 1,312
Posted on 30 July 11 at 12:54 |
This review has 16 positive votes and 0 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Lego Pirates of the Carribbean
Publisher : Disney Interactive Studios
Developer : Travellers Tales
Format : Xbox 360
It’s hard to review something that has been done numerous times before. Chances are that if you are reading this review, then you’ve played one of the many previous LEGO games that have been released. Sure you have, there’s been a few. We’ve seen two Lego Indiana Jones games, three Lego Star Wars games, Lego Batman and there’s even more on the horizon, with the second instalment of the Harry Potter lego games coming later this year. Now finally, FINALLY, we get Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. But deep down, it has been done before - it now just has a different skin.
The Plot
But lets go back to basics : I’m going to assume that you’ve never played a Lego game. It’s a simple premise, where by a movie is converted into, believe it or not, Lego. That means characters, buildings, animals, everything is made out of those small multicoloured Danish bricks. As with the real life toy, you can build creations out of a multitude of bricks then smash them into pieces as you see fit. But without a video to show you some game play footage it’s best described as a plat forming puzzle game aimed at anyone from the ages of around eight years old to at least sixty seven.
Travellers Tales have finally delved into the British ruled Caribbean in the late 1700’s, where the land is roamed by well-to-do British nobles and the seas are sailed by the likes of Blackbeard, Davy Jones and of course, the one and only, Captain Jack Sparrow.
As with other Lego games, this game spans a series of films. We are lucky enough to get all four PotC films (The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At Worlds End and On Stranger Tides). Despite the game being released before the fourth film it is included in all it’s glory (Bear in mind though, that without seeing the fourth film yet the game will pose massive spoilers of the whole plotline). We have all the characters as well, and I truly mean that. Spanning all four films, every major character is here, every minor character is here as well as every possible permutation of existing characters (my personal favourite being Ragetti wearing his dress from the first film).
Gameplay
Each film is set into five separate levels that are separated by mute cut scenes as always to explain the story. It is then you are set into the level in story mode, playing through as the characters that you would in the films. But its only once you have completed a level in story mode that the freedom of the Lego series comes into play, with the aptly titled Freeplay mode. When in Freeplay anything goes - you can select any character that you’ve unlocked previously and then utilise their special abilities to access secret areas and collectibles.
That’s right, collectibles. It wouldn’t be a LEGO game without them, and as is the norm now there is a lot. We have 20 red hats to collect in the Hub area (in this game it is a lovely dock side mooring complete with a beach , a jeti and a lighthouse), we have 85 gold bricks to collect throughout the game (earnt by completing a level, obtaining True Pirate status, finding every compass item and every minikit on each level), we have 8 compass items per level that can only be found by Captain Jack Sparrow’s special compass ability and finally we have ten “ships in a bottle” (also known throughout the series as “mini-kits). So all in all, there is a lot here to discover and collect. While some may be found during the story mode with the characters you are assigned, at a rough approximation I’d hazard a guess that 70% of the collectibles can only be found in Freeplay mode by swapping through multiple characters and abilities.
I’ve mentioned it a few times now, and I can hear the wheels in your head turning from over here. How can LEGO characters have special abilities? Well, as with previous Lego games (I’m starting to hate this phrase) there are several key abilities - Being female like Elizabeth or Angelica allows a double jump, being strong like Davy Jones or BlackBeard allows you to move heavy objects, there are the demolitions experts like Jacoby or Marty that can blow up unbreakable objects, there is the undead who can breathe and walk underwater such as the crew of the Black Pearl, the glass breakers such as Serene and Philip - those that can sing and surprisingly shatter glass and finally we have “Barnacle Transportation”. I made that phrase up as I’m not sure what else to call it. Basically, crew members of the Flying Dutchman can enter secret barnacle covered holes transporting themselves to totally new areas. Finally, we have Jacks beloved, and not quite so broken as to be believed compass. Whenever you control any version of CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, you can hold down B to bring up “What I Want Most”. This is a series of 8 items hidden somewhere around the level - activate the compass in the right portion of the level, and you’ll get an easy to follow waypoint to where the item is hidden. With all these abilities littered throughout the game, it’s easy to see why Freeplay is so important. Let’s take for example the very first level of the first film, where Jack and Will escape from Port Royal. You only control Jack and Will during the escape, so that means out of eight special abilities you only have access to one, Jacks’ compass. So all the secret areas blocked by strong doors or explosive barrels you will have to return in Freeplay with a correct character setup.
The levels are well presented and they focus on the key areas of the film. In fact it’s surprising how well Travellers Tales have captured the films utilising only five levels per film. I’ll summarise the first film here for you - the escape from Port Royal, recruiting a crew in Tortuga, the attack of the Black Pearl, being stranded on Smugglers Den and finishing with an epic battle on the Isle De Meurta.
As with all the mute LEGO games humour plays a big part. The cut scenes would be incredibly dry without sound if it wasn’t for the injecting of that unique LEGO humour we’ve found in other games. The storyboards play the story out well, but lets face it ; its made that little bit more special when you watch Davy Jones trip over a stairwell or Angelica is wearing a full on facial disguise instead of Jacks moustache. The games play true to the films but at certain points Travellers Tales have injected their own little bits - I mean, I certainly don’t remember there being mountable goats when Jack is trapped in Davy Jones locker in the film. But then again, who is going to pull the ship up onto the crabs if the goat wasn’t there? Obviously, the goats needed inclusion.
Online/Co-op
One of the games greatest criticisms is that it still doesn’t include support for play over Xbox Live. It could work easily, it’s just not present here. We do have split screen co-op play however, and it functions on drop in/drop out basis. It works well. Despite some of the previous LEGO games, you and your partner are now not limited to one screen. You can explore anywhere on that section of the level with the screen “tearing” nicely to show you both in your respective areas. Come back together and the screen re-merges into one. It’s a nice feature to have, but co-op play doesn’t really add anything. I found the game far more enjoyable to play solo and switch characters than I did playing properly with a friend. However, for playing around with my son it was perfect, and I think this is what Travellers Tales was aiming for.
Graphics & Sound
This entry into the series is by far the best graphically with the game showing of water effects beautifully. It’s by no means a Crytek production but then again its not meant to be. The main characters have a great unique feel to them down to the peg-legged limp of Davy Jones to CAPTAIN Jacks characteristic run.
Some of the levels are just stunning. The character models and objects are child-like as they should be but it’s the backdrops that make this game stand out. Being stranded on Smugglers Den with the waves lapping the beach, Macaws circling overhead and Jack running around looking for rum was priceless for me. It really showed how far the LEGO games have come.
The sound in the game is pretty good considering it features no voice work. Characters emit grunts and noises (which sounds annoying in this review but isn’t in game). It conveys the emotion well and you aren’t left wondering what they meant. The weapon effects are decent, and I can say this safely because after two full playthroughs the sound of swords clanging together didn’t annoy me once.
Overall
Travellers Tales have really done themselves proud with this game and it is personally my favourite in the series. The only thing I’m struggling to work out is whether its because this is the best LEGO game to date or because I have more of a love of the PotC films than I do the Indiana Jones films? It is suprising how your love of the characters in a film gets transferred to a game and I would take CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow any day of the week over Mr Jones and his whip.
After writing this review I decided to check out some other reviews of Pirates and I must admit I was shocked to see some of the low scores it was getting. All I can say to that, is that the reviews have taken themselves and their job too seriously. I think when they booted it up they were expecting something - that’s the point, with LEGO games you do not expect. You sit down, you play, and you let whatever happens, happen. Pirates is not a game for seriousness. It’s not a game that has to be judged on the competence of the AI, on the difficulty of the puzzles or on whether the characters look too cartoon-like.
Graphics & Sound:8
Gameplay : 8
Sound : 7
Overall : 8/10
 |
Kr4zy Karl 5
40,429
TA Score for this game: 763
Posted on 13 May 11 at 10:55, Edited on 13 May 11 at 11:19 |
This review has 5 positive votes and 13 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean shines a whole new light on the much loved movies.
The previous LEGO games brought a feel of hilarity towards the games, and LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean is no different, from being amused at the sight of Jack Sparrow running about, to hiding under barrels, it adds to the already humorous films, to make a great and entertaining game.
Though, it still manages to keep the story, letting people know what happens throughout the films, in a 'Finger Puppet' method, where you see drawings of the characters act out certain events, along with the usual silent talking LEGO characters.
Though I have played through very little of the game so far, it has certainly been very entertaining, and I recommended people not only getting the game, but setting aside a few hours to play it, because it is well worth it...
|